Co-pending application Ser. No. 08/897,345, filed on Jul. 21, 1997 by Louis R. Nerone, David J. Kachmarik and Michael M. Secen discloses a ballast for a gas discharge lamp of the type using gate drive circuitry to self-regeneratively control a pair of serially connected, complementary conduction-type switches of a d.c.-to-a.c. converter. The ballast includes a circuit for starting regenerative oscillation that is triggerless; that is, it does not include a device triggered into conduction when the voltage across it exceeds a threshold level.
The foregoing ballast includes an inductive-type transformer for setting the frequency of ballast oscillation. In some applications, it would be desirable to avoid the cost and expense of an inductive-type transformer.